


I Keep Your Memory (Rewrite)

by All_About_That_Ace



Series: Ace’s Avatar Archive [6]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Pre-Series, Rewrite, bc lin deserves it, because i was lazy the first time and i want to try to do better, cameo by sokka!, in which lin is more than a bitter ex, it is NOT necessary to read the original, just not a big enough one to appear in the character tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 02:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19454488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/All_About_That_Ace/pseuds/All_About_That_Ace
Summary: For as long as she’d had Mom to disappoint and be disappointed by, she’d had Tenzin at her side. When she’d had her fancy house and expensive foods and prison that stretched as far as she wanted it to, when she’d had nothing worth having at all, she’d had Tenzin, and he’d had her.(In her childhood, in the summers, Lin was sent away to Kyoshi Island. This is what she learned.)





	I Keep Your Memory (Rewrite)

**Author's Note:**

> So, there was a lot of stuff I wanted to put into the original _I Keep Your Memory_ , but I got lazy and skimmed my way through and now I want to try to fix it. I’m keeping the original up, and it is not necessary to read it first to understand this version. If you have read the original, I did copy-paste a lot from the sections that I liked, but I did also add a lot of shit, so skim at your own risk.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** Not mine. Boo. ALSO! A lot of lines will be quotes — some paraphrased — taken from the poem _9 Things I Would Like to Tell Every Teenage Girl_ by Melissa Newman-Evans. You can find it on youtube, and anything of hers will be **written in bold**.
> 
>  **Timeline:** Pre-series. According to the Avatar wiki, there is a 15 year age difference between Pema and Lin, and a one year age difference between Lin and Tenzin. Using this, I have decided that for this fic, Pema is 18, Lin is 33, and Tenzin is 34. The wiki says Pema fell in love with Tenzin sometime before she was 25 so I think this fits. Coincidentally, this is also around the time Aang died so I'm gonna use that, too.

There had not been a time when Lin didn’t know Tenzin. For as long as she had been alive, he was there, right across the harbor. It was inevitable, really, that they would start dating. That was how these stories worked; boy and girl grow up together, fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.

Lin had never really cared for stories or "happily ever after", but she cared for Tenzin.

She had thought he cared for her, too.

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ **The world** ** _is_** **trying to kill you. It is trying to do this by stealing your voice.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

In her childhood, before Suyin was born but after Bumi ditched them all for the military, in the summers when Uncle Aang flew Tenzin around to the Air Temples and Aunt Katara took Kya to study at the South Pole and Mom just couldn’t be bothered to raise her kid, Lin was sent away to Kyoshi Island.

Uncle Sokka took the boat with her, telling increasingly outlandish tales about kidnapping spirits and vine-benders and a library that tried to sink, anything to postpone the realization that Toph Beifong may have been the greatest earthbender in all of history, but she had no clue what to do with her daughter and she never really would.

(Lin never really learned that, not on any of the boat trips, not at the police academy, not when Suyin was sent away and Mom buried herself even further in her work and Lin was left to try to build something with so many missing pieces.)

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

They are slipping. She knows they are slipping, she just doesn't know how to stop it.

When they had first started dating, Lin hadn't really appreciated the pressure Tenzin was under. Sure, Lin had her mother's legacy to live up to, but Tenzin had the culture of an entire people to preserve. She tried to understand, but the two didn't really compare. They had been persevering, though, until Avatar Aang died, and all that pressure increased. Tenzin became the only airbender, and the only person capable of bringing new airbenders into the world.

He started talking about marriage.

Lin has nothing against marriage. She’s at a good place in her life and career, and she _loves_ him, loves him like she never thought she could. 

Then Tenzin started talking about children.

She doesn't know why it had never occurred to her, that the last airbender would want to make _more_ airbenders. It only made sense, after all, that he would try to rebuild however much of the Air Nation he could. The Air Acolytes are all well and good, but they can't actually _bend_ anything. They can't fill the hole in the world or replace the weight in the balance or heal the festering wound that had been in Uncle Aang's heart.

Lin has nothing against children, not really. She doesn't _hate_ kids. They’re always getting into things they shouldn't and asked questions constantly — good traits for a cop — but she doesn't actually _want_ any. She never had. They’re messy and whiny and fragile and loud and Lin is _absolutely terrified_ of the idea of having a life so completely dependent on her.

She had tried to change her mind. She'd tried to imagine having a baby of her own, a piece of her and Tenzin, something grown inside of herself, a family she could _hold_ , but the image wouldn’t come.

(At one point, Lin decided to leave it to fate and stopped using her birth control. Doing that terrified her more than the idea of having a child did. When no pregnancy came of it she tried to feel some sort of disappointment, but all she had felt was relief.)

(She didn't tell Tenzin.)

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ **You are the best thing in every room. You’ll notice I did not say ‘the prettiest’. You are also the prettiest thing in every room,** ** _but that shit doesn’t matter_** **. That shit is the world trying to kill you.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

In her childhood, before she started dating but after she started school, in the summers when Uncle Aang was teaching Tenzin at Air Temple Island and Aunt Katara was flying Kya around the Earth Kingdom swamps and Mom still has no fucking clue what to do with the child she carried for nine months, Lin was sent away to Kyoshi Island.

Uncle Sokka took the boat with her. He told outlandish tales of dancing dragons and secret caves and a princess who loved her people so much she traded her family and the man she loved for an eternity in the sky.

(Lin wondered what gave someone that type of courage, that type of strength, to be so completely unselfish they were willing to lose absolutely everything so that others might go on. Lin wondered how anyone could love like that. If she ever could. If she would even want to.)

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

When Mom worked late and thought it was ok to send a stranger to the house with food, when Lin gave her straight A’s and Mom just ordered her to go practice her forms, when Lin became the youngest metalbender in history and Mom smirked like it was expected and carried on like it was any other day, Tenzin was there to invite her to dinner, to give her a homemade congratulations card, to bring her her favorite fruit tart fresh from the island’s kitchens.

For as long as she’d had Mom to disappoint and be disappointed by, she’d had Tenzin at her side. He’d helped her take her first steps, taken her on her first sky bison ride, given her the first hug and kiss and _I love you_ that she ever remembered receiving. When she’d had her fancy house and expensive foods and prison that stretched as far as she'd ever want to go, when she’d had nothing worth having at all, she’d had Tenzin, and he’d had her.

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ **You’ll never completely kill the idea that your body is the most important thing about you. That shit is everywhere. And if you’re alive, and hearing me say these words right now, then you’ve already heard it too many times.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

In her childhood, before her sibling was born but after they were expected to arrive, in the summer when Aunt Katara waited anxiously for Mom to just _go into labor already_ and Mom had no fucking clue what she’d been doing with one kid let alone have any plans for two, Lin was sent away to Kyoshi Island.

Uncle Sokka took the boat with her, with his crazy stories about psychics and sword masters and a sleepy little village with grudges centuries old.

( _This feels more likely_ , Lin had thought, _that someone can hold onto that for so long. Much more likely than the princess in the moon._ Then Lin returned to Republic City and set her eyes on her new sister, Suyin, so small and breakable and unaware of the family she’d just been thrust into, and suddenly, Lin knew what Yue had felt in that moment where she shattered herself to fill the cracks in the people around her. Lin was too young to know that there was something she was willing to die for, and too old to pretend that Mom would love Suyin any better than she loved Lin.)

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Lin searched everywhere for some type of loophole, some kind of trick, but there was nothing, absolutely _nothing_ , absolutely no option where both of them are happy and she is _selfish,_ she is _so so selfish_ and she wants him to want her more than he wants to fix the world and he won’t. He can’t. He _absolutely refuses._

(Surrogacy, she tells herself. Surrogacy could work. The Air Acolytes would jump at the chance and they already live _right there_ and it would be _easy_ , it would be _so so easy_ to have her be the wife and them be the nannies and the mothers and the caretakers and Tenzin will have his children and she will have him and all he would have to do is live in a world where he is married to a woman who his children will never call _mother_ and isn’t that compromise? Isn’t that a middle where they can meet?)

(Lin can give up her promotions and her solitude and her privacy and Tenzin can give up his childish bullshit belief that all families are equal and all children are loved like they should be.)

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ **The best hairstyle is one that helps you get out of bed in the morning. The best makeup is one that sharpens a knife for you.** **The best outfit is one that** **_fits._ ****Wear whatever you want, look however you want; you know who can fuck themselves if they don’t like it?** **_Everyone_** **.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

In her childhood, before she gave up on her mother’s approval but after she realized how difficult it was to obtain, in the summers Suyin was too young to recall, when her friends were with their parents and she couldn’t even get Mom to stay long enough to eat breakfast together, Lin was sent away to Kyoshi Island.

Uncle Sokka took the boat with her, telling stories of volcano eruptions and mind explosions and giant drills, but he didn’t stay with her after landing, not that time. For the first of very many times, Lin was taken to the training studio of the Kyoshi Warriors. In front of her stood Aunt Suki in full uniform, a wide smile on her face and her warriors at her back. Four girls sat in the middle of the room. They looked up as Aunt Suki cheered;

“Linnie!” She walked over to her, holding out a matching dress and jars of make up. “You’re finally old enough to train with us, little badgermole. _All of you are!”_ she said, turning to what is apparently her new class. “Are you girls ready?”

Lin had never considered joining the Kyoshi Warriors, having no desire to live on the island or walk around in armor that heavy, but she knew how sacred the warriors considered their group and the bonds within it, and the knowledge that they wanted to share that with her made her want to cry.

She accepted the gifts and began to change with the rest of her class, unconcerned with the people around her, and Aunt Suki turned to grab some fans.

“There are a few things you need to know, now that you’re a Kyoshi Warrior,” she said, flicking the fans, flawlessly maintained as always. Lin accepted them from her and gripped them tight, feeling the metal of the blades and the inscriptions within them. _Duty_ , _Family_ , _Honor_ , _Sisterhood_ , _Unity_ , _History_ , _Strength_. “ **One:** **the world** ** _is_** **trying to kill you.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Tenzin is acting odd. He’s putting off dates and shortening phone calls, spending more and more time on Air Temple Island with the Acolytes.

It’s the end. Lin feels it in her bones, in her core, in the tick of her pulse, and she wants to fight it. She is _earth_. She is firm and strong and unmoving and there is not a force in this world that can push her around, but she _knows_ , and it _burns_ , but what can she do? Their entire relationship had been a gamble, a risk of the friendship they’d spent a lifetime building, and she _loves him_ , and she _doesn’t want to lose him_ , and she knows that’s what this is. She’s losing him. She’s losing _all_ of him, and she can’t let it go.

They can be adults, can admit to what is so obvious to everyone else and try to salvage what they can, but Lin doesn’t know how to quit and Tenzin doesn’t know how to confront and everything just feels like _failure_. Lin’s never failed before.

(Well, she failed at getting Mom’s attention, failed at keeping her sister on the right side of the law, failed at holding her family together, but that had never been obtainable, not with her being the only one to try.)

( _You are not defined by what you cannot be, what you cannot have, only who you are._ Tenzin had told her that, growing up, every time she came to him with a new installment of Beifong Family Drama. She’d never let it sink in, though she’d wanted to. Apparently, he had never believed it, either.)

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ **You need to hold up your sisters.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

In her childhood, before Lin was old enough to babysit but after she was old enough to know that that is not how things are done in healthy families, in the summers when her friends were visiting Bumi and Lin was wondering what she could do so Suyin didn’t grow up feeling like she did, Lin was sent away to Kyoshi Island.

Uncle Sokka took the boat with her, telling stories about painted ladies and prison breaks and trees that stretch across the world in one big network of ever-expanding roots. Lin was taken to the Kyoshi studio and suited up, worked to the bone and praised after every formation, sore and bloodied and bruised and panting and home and home and _home_.

She was shown how to shatter a limb, how to spot signs of abuse, how to bring down someone four times her size without waking a child, and she had a _family_ , one that wasn’t always working or travelling, one that could hold her close _and_ lift her up and she wondered if this was what Tenzin felt all the time.

Lin successfully demonstrated a throw and a classmate cheered, spinning her around and crowing, “Way to go, little sister!” and Lin _wanted_ and she _wanted_ and she _knew_ that this was not something she was meant to have, not forever, not for long.

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Lin decides to go to the island herself. Tenzin will obviously not come to her, and the silence is deafening and the distance is suffocating and even with all those summers on separate islands, _this_ is the longest they have gone without seeing each other.

(This is not failing. She is _not_ a _failure_ , she is _succeeding_. She is succeeding at saving their relationship, what bits of it remain, and maybe it will be different now, but it will be _there_ , as it has always been _there_ , and this is what she clings to as she stomps down and finds him in the courtyard.)

He is not alone. She had known that, back when she had felt him, but she hadn’t concerned herself with it, hadn’t thought to come up with some way to send the guest off. The Air Acolytes know her, know who she is to Tenzin and his family, and they are graceful enough to bow out when she arrives, but this is different.

Lin is not the jealous type. She is not paranoid or possessive, she does not see her boyfriend with an attractive woman and fly off the handle, but she does _see._ Their body language, their expressions, their quickened pulses in the earth, Lin sees it all and she _knows_ that she has been the only one trying to build something out of _so many missing pieces_.

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ ** _Everyone_** **is your sister.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

In her childhood, before Tenzin was her boyfriend but after Suyin was her bane,

“ **The girl with the jacked up teeth and the thrift store clothes is your sister.** ”

in the summers when her sister was running wild and Mom refused to care,

“ **The girl who fucks girls** ** _is_** **your sister.** ”

in her childhood, before her family finally broke but after she realized it was destined to,

“ **The girl who used to be called Jian, but is now called Jin is** ** _your sister_** **.** ”

in the summer when Tenzin blushed when he said goodbye and Suyin skipped every day of summer school and Mom still had _no fucking clue what she was doing—_

“ **Every girl who is trying so hard to kill you is** ** _still your sister_** **.** ”

In her adulthood, before Suyin ran away from Gaoling but after she’d ripped Lin open without so much as an apology, in the summer when Tenzin held her for hours after each new nightmare of her baby sister hacking away at the family while her “friends” cheered her on and Lin had to get used to a new face and a new routine and a new apartment because she couldn’t stay there she _couldn’t_ —

Lin went to Kyoshi Island.

The warriors accepted her with open arms, showing off their own battle scars and telling their own tales of sorrow and letting her speak or not speak just as long as she felt like it and Lin wondered why Suyin never had this, why she was never sent off on the boat, why Lin had never tried to bring her, and Lin wondered if it was her fault that her baby sister never learned.

“ **The world is trying to kill each and every one of you and if you do not hold each other up, no one else will.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

She steps into the courtyard and they finally notice her, and Tenzin looks so guilty and Lin feels so sick. She wants to confront him — she’s _going_ to confront him, pain in her chest be _damned_ — and everything is shrinking until there is nothing left of the world except the three of them.

The woman is young — nineteen, maybe twenty in the right light — and she looks sweet and soft and sorry. She looks at Lin and she looks _so sorry_ and Lin will take a lot of things but she will not take _this_ , will not accept _pity_ from the girl who cares _so little_ for other women that she will want another’s man and she will take him anyway.

And Tenzin is trying so hard to say something and Lin is trying so hard to stay standing and this person is trying _so hard to kill her_ —

“ _Lin—_ ”

The courtyard shatters.

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ **Someday, someone is gonna call you a woman. It’s gonna be the most terrifying thing to think about yourself, but recognize it for the medal of honor that it is.** ”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Lin shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn't have done that. She should _not_ have done that. She is an officer of the law, a servant of the public, a _legacy of a founder_ , she can’t just _destroy the home of the last airbender._

Someone is going to file a report. Someone is going to tell her colleagues that she’s gone mad and wrecked an embassy and she’s going to get arrested and fired and blacklisted from _every law enforcement job on the continent_. Lin doesn’t know how to be anything but a cop, doesn’t _want_ to be anything but a cop, what is she supposed to do?

(She is welcome on Kyoshi, and she loves her sisters, but what good can she do there? The island is well taken care of, it doesn’t need her, not like Republic City needs her, and she is small enough that she needs to be needed, and she knows it, and she hates it, and she knows she is not someone who can change.)

The Air Acolytes are all about forgiveness and moving on. Maybe if she promises to fix all the damage she's done, they’ll agree not to press charges. Sure, it would take her a few weeks to smooth all the rubble out, but it would be worth it not to have to leave Republic City.

(Or maybe she _should_ leave Republic City. She can change her name and her hair and get a fresh start. Live a better life. Find a new best friend and a new lover and new sisters and take all of these stupid fucking feelings and hold them in until she dies. She can jump from place to place and never tell anyone from her old life where she is. Let go her earthly tethers. Become wind)

"Detective, she's here. We've put her in interrogation room 2."

She shouldn't have done that, either.

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

"So your name is Pema, huh?"

"You can't just have me arrested!" She glares at Lin from the metal chair she’s sat in and Lin wonders if in any other world, the two of them could have been friends.

"You're not arrested, you're detained," Lin tells her. "Now shut up and listen. We have maybe ten minutes before Tenzin comes to your rescue."

"You—"

"I _will_ gag you." Lin won't, but the Acolyte isn't a truthseer like Mom. She can't feel the increased pulse behind the stony face. She sits back quietly. "You _do_ know who I am, don't you?" Pema simply glares. " _D_ _o_ _n't_ you?"

"I thought you didn't want me to talk," Pema says sarcastically. Lin punches the table.

" _You don't get to play the victim here_." Lin may not have taken the high ground in this, but Pema does _not_ get to pretend she has any right to it, either. “You know who I am.”

Pema looks away.

“That’s what I thought.”

"You don't understand," Pema says, her eyes still averted.

"What's there to understand?"

" _He was miserable_." Pema finally looks up at Lin again, and Lin wishes she had just kept looking away. She doesn't need to hear about this from Tenzin's other girlfriend, she needs to hear about this from _Tenzin_ , but she should be used to things working out like this. She’d never gotten what she needed from Mom, but she’d thought Tenzin was different. _How stupid._ "Your relationship with him was falling apart and I _know_ he and I are meant to be together, so fine, yes, I knew he was seeing you when I told him my feelings, but I'm not sorry he chose me!"

"You think _that's_ why I'm angry?" Lin doesn't shout. She doesn't need to shout. She has a firmness to her voice that makes shouting unnecessary, but Pema flinches as if Lin had screamed in her ear. "I’ve _kn_ _o_ _w_ _n_ we were going nowhere, I knew it was just a matter of time, but I'd hoped the man I’ve known _my entire life_ would _at least_ have enough respect for me to break up before deciding to date _some teenager_."

The room is silent. Pema freezes. "Wh… What?"

Lin’s eyes widen, and she looks away. She _hadn’t_ known….

"You mean... he didn't...." Pema raises her hands to her lips. She looks like she’s going to start crying and that is one thing Lin has no intention of dealing with. "I thought…. I thought he had broken up with you. I thought he just hadn't told you he'd moved on so quickly and that's why you were so mad. _I didn't_ …!" A tear slides down the Acolyte's cheek.

"Stop crying," Lin orders. "I'm not crying, you don't get to cry."

"I'm sorry." Pema sniffles and Lin hands her a handkerchief. "Thank you."

"Eh." Lin takes a seat in the opposite chair. "I was all set to hate you, too. Way to ruin it."

Pema lets out a watery giggle and Lin doesn’t bother to say she wasn’t joking. The woman is hurting. She won’t make it worse.

"I just can't believe he would do this," Pema whispers, staring down at the table. Her voice is small, and Lin doesn’t know her, not really, but she knows the woman who walked up to the physical embodiment of a culture she revered — lover to one of the top metalbenders in the _world_ — and told him _“I love you”_ is not supposed to look this weak.

"Look, I've known Tenzin forever," Lin says, "and one thing you should learn about him _right now_ ; he is _not_ perfect." Pema looks at Lin, her red eyes wide. "He's passive aggressive and way too obsessed with being his father and he would sooner avoid you than address a problem, case in point. Honestly, I'm half convinced Tenzin was _hoping_ I would see you two so he wouldn't have to do the breaking up himself."

Pema looks shamefaced again and Lin really wishes she didn’t. Lin is trying to make a point, not take shots. Pema needs to know these things if she’s going to be with Tenzin. She has to prepare herself for the silences and the annoying proverbs and the weight of the Air Nation she will have to help him carry.

(Because even though Lin wants to sock him in the jaw, he _i_ _s_ her friend — or at the very least, _had been_ her friend — and seeing Pema, crying over the pain she'd unwittingly caused but so determined to fight back when their conversation had first started, Lin is sure they will work. Her friend is patient and this woman is strong and Tenzin-and-Pema will work a lot better than Tenzin-and-Lin ever could have. It will hurt, and she doesn’t want to lay eyes on Tenzin ever again, but there are more important things, and she is _still_ so selfish but she doesn’t want to be anymore.)

"Call him on his crap. Don't let him get away with this," Lin tells Pema, who nods solemnly. Lin closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "And then forgive him and try again."

"E-excuse me?" Pema asks.

"He's just a dumbass and he needs someone around to tell him when he's being a particularly big one. Now get out. Tenzin's at the front desk demanding your release." He isn't being quiet about it, either. Even without her seismic sense, Lin can probably hear him if she tries hard enough.

( _And tell him I never want to see him again_ , Lin wants to say. _Tell him he's a terrible friend and he needs to grow a spine and if he cared so little for me he should never have agreed to date me in the first place._ )

( _Tell him my ribs feel like they're being crushed and I don't know how to fix it. Tell him he's a liar and I should never have believed him when he said he wasn't going to_ _let us end up like every other fucking relationship I’ve had_ _. Tell him I can't breathe. Tell him I can't think. Tell him I hate him. Tell him I'm a liar, too._ )

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Pema asks, just one step from the doorway, her face open and unafraid.

“Because you’re my sister,” Lin tells her, “and the world is trying to kill us.” She bends the door open and feels the exact moment Tenzin finds out where they are. “ ** _Kill it back._** ”

Pema’s face smooths out. She breathes deep and nods and goes to find Tenzin. Lin sneaks away. It is not the time nor place to confront him, and she is in no state to pull her punches, anyway.

She feels them embrace. She leaves.

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

“ **It means that you have survived, that everything that has tried to kill you has failed**.”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Lin goes back to an apartment he’d helped her find, a bed he’d helped her break in, a home he’d helped her make. She looks around at the life she has built, and how much of it had been built around him. She can’t stand it.

She takes everything, a lifetime of memories she can’t bear to see, and shoves them under a bed she can’t stand to touch, and lays down on the floor of a living room she can barely tolerate anymore, and wonders what to do now.

(Everything looks so bare.)

Wonders if thirty-three more years is enough to stop her lungs from trying to escape her chest.

(How much of her life has been Lin’s, and not Tenzin-and-Lin's? And if so much has been Tenzin-and-Lin's, will she still know how to live it?)

She’s going to sell everything, and what she can’t sell will be donated, and what she can’t donate will be buried, and what she can’t bury will be cleansed with fire because that is some otherworldly shit and she is in no mood.

Maybe one day she can look at him again. Maybe one day she can catch up with her new sister.

(Maybe one day Mom will actually _talk_ to her and Suyin will come home.)

(Maybe her face will heal and her father will appear and she’ll figure out which missing part of her is making her stomach clench like this and she’ll finally be able to make it stop and she won’t have to deal with so much bullshit anymore.)

(Maybe one day she can move on from this, and every breath won't be a reminder of all the things she wishes she could be.)

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

In her childhood, before she realized she didn’t actually get one and after she convinced herself she didn’t actually want one, when there was no baby sister or boyfriends or that unpleasant feeling every time she saw a parent smile at their child, Lin was packing for her first trip to Kyoshi Island.

“You better have everything, kid, because I’m not mailing anything after you,” Mom said from the doorway, lazy and cocky and not at all like the other moms Lin has seen, but Lin didn’t care, didn’t care about the other moms, the not-a-war-hero moms, the not-a-friend-of-the-Avatar moms, the never-invented-an-entirely-new-category-of-bending moms. They weren’t _her_ mom, so they weren’t worth concerning herself with. Lin had more important things to deal with, like finding her favorite shirt and deciding what she wanted her meteor anklets to look like and the fact that she is _clearly_ far too old to be called _kid_.

“ _Mooooom_ ,” Lin said, rolling her eyes though she knew Mom couldn’t see it. “If I’m old enough to travel so far, I’m too old to be called a kid.”

“You are an _infant_ ,” Mom insisted. She tapped Lin on the nose and Lin frowned. “Don’t pout, Linnie. I’m more eager for you to grow up than you are, I’m the one who should be pouting. Now finish packing!”

**-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-**

Years later, on her first visit as a warrior, after her first training session as a student, Aunt Suki stood over the exhausted bodies of Lin and her sisters, strong and smiling and radiant with pride, and said, “ **I’m sorry. I should have called you all women before we ever began.** ”

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, this is a lot closer to how I originally imagined the story, but again, I was just too lazy the first time around, so here we are again.
> 
> Please leave a comment or kudos and thank you for reading!


End file.
